Universidade de Aveiro 2009
Departamento de Línguas e Cultura
Esmeralda da
Conceição Cunha
Catalim
A TRIOLOGIA DO SENHOR DOS ANÉIS: DO
LIVRO AO FILME
THE TRILOGY OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS:
FROM BOOK TO FILM
Universidade de Aveiro 2009
Departamento de Línguas e Cultura
Esmeralda da
Conceição Cunha
Catalim
A TRIOLOGIA DO SENHOR DOS ANÉIS: DO
LIVRO AO FILME
THE TRILOGY OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS:
FROM BOOK TO FILM
Dissertação apresentada à Universidade de Aveiro para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Línguas Literaturas e Culturas, variante de Estudos Ingleses, realizada sob a orientação científica do Prof. Dr. Anthony David Barker, Professor Associado do Departamento de Línguas e Culturas da Universidade de Aveiro
o júri
presidente Prof. Dr. Kenneth David Callahan
Professor Associado da Universidade de Aveiro
Prof. Dr. Joaquim João Cunha Braamcamp de Mancelos Professor Auxiliar da Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Prof. Dr. Anthony David Barker
Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Anthony Barker for his continuous support, patience, and understanding. Without his valuable advises, encouragement and insightful discussions, this work would never have been possible. I would also like to thank Professors David Callahan and Gillian Moreira for their earlier contribution in my English Literature and Language studies, as well as, to my family and friends for being always there for me.
Palavras-chave
Resumo
Triologia, Tolkien, mitologia, Peter Jackson, O Senhor dos Aneis, os Aneis, linguistica, literatura fantástica, fantasia, ficção,
cinamatografia, Nova Zelândia, terra-média, hobbits, elfos, lendas, tradição oral, Weta Digital, fãs, grupos de fãs na Internet,
audiências, publicidade e franchisado cinamatográfico, estreia global.
Este trabalho é estudo comparativo e analítico da trilogia literária do J.R.Tolkien O Senhor dos Anéis, assim como da produção cinematográfica do director Peter Jackson quarenta anos depois da publicação dos livros. O objectivo é demonstrar que apesar de uma adaptação cinematográfica não conseguir substituir a obra literária, pode contudo, com a tecnologia de hoje, ser o seu complemento visual. Igualmente importante neste trabalho é o estudo sobre os grupos de fãs organizados, o franchisado publicitário cinematográfico e marketing criado à volta de uma publicidade virtual e de estreia global na nova era de filmes para uma audiência em massa.
Keywords trilogy, Tolkien, mitology, Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings, the Rings, linguistic, literature, fantasy, fiction, cinamatography, New Zealand, middle-earth, hobbits, elves, ledgends, oral tradition, Weta Digital, fans, Online fandom, audiences,publicity and film franchise, global release.
Abstract This is a comparative and analytical work of J.R.R. Tolkien literary trilogy
The Lord of the Rings as well as the cinematographic production of Peter
Jackson forty years after the publication of the books. The goal is to demonstrate that though a film adaptation will never replace the original literary work, it can be, however, its visual compliment or extension. Equally important, is the study of the organised fans and fandom, the publicity, marketing and film franchise that involves an online publicity and global release in a new cinematographic era for mass audiences.
Contents
Acknowledgments ... iii
Palavras-Chave/Resumo ... iv
Keywords/Abstract ... v
Contents ... vi
List of Illustrations ... vii
Introduction ... 1
Chapter I - J.R. R. Tolkien: The Writer and the Book ... 6
1.The Writer: His Life ... 7
2.The Book: Creating an English Myth: Philogy and Historical Resourses ... 15
- The Words ... 15
- Tolkien's Christianity ... 16
- Sources of Inspiration ... 18
3.The Book: The Story of its Publication ... 19
Chapter II - From Novel to Film ... 26
1. Adaptation to Cinema ... 27
2. Lost in Translation – The Screenwriting ... 31
3.Visual Imagery ... 35
Chapter III - The Film Trilogy ... 39
1.The Mechanics: Structuring the Three Films ... 40
2. The Making of: Casting, Settings and Specal Digital Effects ... 44
3. The Post Production: Editing, Music and Sound Effects ... 49
Chapter IV - The Cultural Phenomeon ... 51
1. Marketing, Publicity, Global Release and Audience Response... 52
2. Afterlife in Popular Culture ... 56
3. The Rise of Popular Cults: From Fans to Secret Societies ... 60
Conclusion – Final Considerations ... 64
Appendixes ... 68
Bibliography ... 73
List of Illustrations
1. Edith Bratt ... 12
2. J. R. R. Tolkien ... 14
3. Original Lord of the Rings Book Covers ... 25
4. Orcs by Bakshi (1978 The Lord of the Rings Cartoon) ... 36
5. Freytag’s Triangle ... 41
6. Novel’s Structure ... 41
7. Film’s Stricture ... 42
8. Breaking up Tolkien’s Story ... 42
9. Structure of The Lord of the Rings Films ... 43
10. Liv Tyler ... 47
11. Christopher Lee ... 47
12. Orlando Bloom ... 47
13. Ent Wine Glass ... 54
14. LotR Checkers Game ... 54
15. Talking Sméagol Doll ... 54
16. Aragorn Keychain ... 54
17. New Zealand Tourism Growth Table ... 59
18. LotR John Cook’s Comic ... 61
19. The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) Movie Poster ... 63
20. The Two Towers (2002) Movie Poster ... 63
21. The Return of the King (2003) Movie Poster ... 63
22. Film Genealogy of The Lord of the Rings ... 69
23. John Howe’s Middle-earth Map ... 70
24. Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth Map ... 70
25. Original Middle-earth Map drew by Tolkien ... 70
26. Lieutenant Barad-Dur (John Howe illustration) ... 71
27. Mines of Moria (Alan Lee illustration) ... 71
28. Galadriel and Frodo (John Howe illustration) ... 71
29. Gandalf arriving at Hobbiton (Alan Lee illustration) ... 72
30. The Council of Elrond (Alan Lee illustration) ... 72
31. Orc Pursuit (Alan Lee illustration) ... 72
It is my argument in this thesis that the immense popularity of Tolkien's The
Lord of the Rings trilogy comes not from the escapism that critics have detected in its
pages, these latter maintaining that it only appeals to readers who desire to escape from reality, but rather from the converse - the recognition that Middle-Earth, in general terms, is our life on earth reflected in a fantastic mirror.
Popularity and the counting of heads is of course not everything. However it is significant to note that in 2003, viewers of the BBC program The Big Read, voted The
Lord of the Rings ‘The Nation’s Favourite Novel’. Peter Jackson’s release of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy in the early 2000’s went on to reinforce the status of the book
as a popular favourite, reanimating book sales on a massive scale. Indeed, throughout this dissertation, whether or not The Lord of the Rings is a novel will be called into question. Tolkien himself called it a ‘heroic romance’ – so issues of generic identity and meaning might be considered central to the success of both the books and their adaptation to the cinema.
For the first time since The Lord of the Rings’ publication in the mid 50’s, Tolkien’s characters came to life (with live actors) in Jackson’s mega-film production, and the Middle-earth took shape in the form of the beautiful landscape of New Zealand. By using the artwork of Alan Lee and John Howe, who had previously designed numerous books covers and illustrations for the various printed versions of Tolkien, Peter Jackson was able to give specific form to the worlds of The Lord of the Ring’s imagined by Tolkien’s many readers. The extraordinary tales were put right before of our eyes on the big screen. That was Jackson’s achievement – the ability to produce a cinematographic masterwork that not only powerfully resonated in the minds of readers/fans of Tolkien, but also brilliantly brought Tolkien’s epic, developed over three massive books, to the even wider audience of contemporary cinema.
So, what makes supposedly modern, materialistic, rational, apparently grown-up people gravitate toward these re-workings of ancient myths and fantastic epics? What draws them to the Power of the Ring? There are many answers. One of the answers, in light of cultural criticism, can be our need of complex narratives to make sense of life - stories that purport to tell us where we came from, where we are going, and how to live. Apparently, this new technological age we live in has not wiped out the deep human need for traditional stories of this nature. Jackson was also determined to be that kind of storyteller and show us we can use technology in our favour. Amongst the many things he does is to pick up Tolkien’s epic, draw out the traditional story
embodying Christian teaching, and present us with the old drama of sin and redemption.
We might also want to explore these theological and spiritual dimensions of the story, distanced from their old familiar biblical-type iconography. It appears that people are desperately searching for related mythical fables in contemporary, fantastical and futuristic contexts. Witness the success of The Matrix (1999:2003) films with their Trinitarian structure, for example. This can explain why dramatically rich stories like
Star Wars (1977) or Stardust (2007) can become obsessions with on-line games that
give people an active role in reworking the stories. Cults and groups form around them, and all kind of interactive fan enthusiasm and related craziness developments. Take
The Da Vinci Code (2006) thriller for instance, a recent example of the spiritual search
for an undying divinity, the return to the roots of Christianity, and the raiding of the Bible for occult meaning.
Many Christian writers, including C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Dorothy Sayers, have also used popular story forms, including fantasy and science fiction, to teach Christian truths. But none of them has had the impact of The Lord of the Rings where this One Ring seemed to represent power - a weapon of mass destruction – so that after the terrorist attack in New York on September 11 2001 many readers/fans and filmgoers were tempted to associate Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda and other Middle East terrorist organisations with Tolkien’s portentous warnings. But there is nothing new in these allegories. In the past, interpreters have associated the Ring with the atomic bomb, Hitler, the Soviet Union, and with a long list of successive “Anti-Christ’s”, over-powerful threatening nations and other 20th Century political figures.
However, it is not my purpose here to argue for the Christianity of The Lord of
the Rings, or for the spiritual void that the modern age has brought about, or to discuss
the Power of the Ring; others have done so. Tolkien himself dismissed any association or implied allegories of The Rings to the Nazis or to the Communists. I only intend with my work to explain the processes affecting adaptation of Tolkien’s mythological creations from book to film. Along the way, it might be interesting to ask whether a film can replace a book or if cinema’s graphic literalism has done any damage to the book as an independent entity.
What better example could we have than The Lord of the Rings? In an age of declining reading habits (and the LotR has three exceptionally long volumes), how many ran to a bookstore to supplement their movie experience by buying and reading
the book? Has Peter Jackson’s perfectionism and creativity had the effect of making Tolkien’s texts less rather than more significant?
I don’t intended to argue that a film can replace a book. I don’t think that ever can be done. Literary and filmic creations are two distinct forms of activity. They can merge or interact but they cannot replace one another. I am only attempting to show that a fantastic, mythological story, such as Tolkien’s epic, cannot help but lend itself to contemporary cinema’s taste for spectacle and special effects. From book to film, mythology can gain new shape, colour, and sound. It can become alive and rise before us. From the pen of a talented writer to the camera of a brilliant producer, who, I want to argue, has the capability to capture the spirit of the original with his camera lens, and at the same time, to showcase the best of modern technical accomplishment in cinema.
But as both a book lover and a film fan, I don’t have to be in the invidious position of having to choose between them. I will address them both on their merits. I have divided my work mainly into two parts. I will discuss the writer and the book in the first part, and the film on the second part. The books and the films will be discussed for the most part as unified trilogies and not as individual books/films, although I will be finding some points of contrast within the three films as, like the books, they were made and released in response to slightly different market and audience conditions. Obviously this is a very ambitious project, and I can only hope to bring out the main issues in a research work of this size.
In the first chapter I will be discussing Tolkien’s life, his works, his love for words and Christianity, the creation of his mythology and the history behind the publication of
The Lord of the Rings. The reason for this is that I feel we need to understand the man
before we can understand his work. It will take us back to the need he felt to create a mythology for a troubled England.
From here, I will address the issues involved in making the transition from book to film. In my second chapter I will discuss the specific process of adaptation of The
Lord of the Rings novel cycle to film forms, the available source materials and the issue
of exactly what is lost in the translation to a screen adaptation. I give attention in particular to the films’ pictorialism. That will lead me into the second part of my work – commentary on the films as part of our wider film culture.
Chapter three is dedicated to Peter Jackson’s work. I will discuss the filmmaking and its mechanics, the narrative structure according to Freytag’s Triangle, the casting, the settings and the editing of the film trilogy.
Lastly, my fourth chapter is dedicated to the books/films as cultural phenomena. In this chapter I will also briefly discuss the films’ franchising created by the New Line Cinema marketing machine and publicity surrounding the films’ global launch. I will also attempt to evaluate the film trilogy from a narrative point of view and to assess the critical response to audience identification with the finished films, online fandom and the appearance of new fan-bases as a reaction to the films.
Since its publication, The Lord of the Rings has been very popular not only in the United Kingdom but also in other English speaking countries. It has touched three separate generations and has had an enormous impact in America. It has brought about the creation of cults, secret societies, on-line games, schools of Qenya and elfish languages, songs, poems, multiple graphic works, and a worldwide fan-base that worships Frodo and lives in a Middle-Earth of their own imaginative creation.
Of course, many of these interpretations are personal - and they should be. Every story can be interpreted differently, and myths are unending and powerful tools that can be used to make sense of our own personal experience. Like all stories, The
Lord of the Rings can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. There is no right or wrong
way to read a story for its mythic meaning. As a number of commentators on the global popularity of Tolkien myth have opined, that interpretation “must feel right for you and
yields a useful insight in your life. For each reader, culture, time period, gender or society, the myth will mean something different. Therefore, a hero can have a thousand faces.” (Christopher Vogler, Myth and the Movies, foreword)
CHAPTER I
1. The Writer – His Life
It is clear that the life of Tolkien could not have been as sophisticated and magical as his mythical world, but it could perhaps have been as quiet and plain as a hobbit’s life. Something about Tolkien reminds us of good old Bilbo with his love for the Shire, for the simple pleasures of life, and his secret yarning for adventures but at the same time wishing for wisdom, beauty, and the quietness of Rivandell’s halls.
The name "Tolkien" is believed to be of German origin. His father's side of the family migrated from Saxony to England in the 18th century, but Arthur Reuel Tolkien considered himself as an Englishman. Arthur was a bank clerk who left for South Africa in the 1890s in search of a better future and was joined later by Mabel Suffield - his bride from the English West Midlands. John Ronald (called Ronald by his family and friends) was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on January 3rd of 1892, followed two years later by his brother Hillary. Soon afterwards he came to England with his parents, but it was only after Arthur’s death in 1896, that the family settled permanently in Birmingham (D. Doughan; Essay; J.R.R. Tolkien: Bibliography Sketch, p.1). The boys were raised in an environment of a complex combination of the ghastly industrial urban area of Birmingham and the traditional surrounding areas of rural Worcestershire, which explains Ronald’s love for nature and a strong dislike for urbanization. As a child, he was particularly gifted at drawing landscapes and trees. But he didn’t only like to draw trees. He also liked to be with them, to dwell in their presence and to sense their life. Tolkien’s love for trees is reflected in most of his literary works. Tolkien's main early joys were also found in books and words. Unable to afford their tuitions fees, Mabel Tolkien educated her children herself. Ronald was a quick leaner and was able to read and write proficiently before he was four. Mabel realized her oldest son’s aptitude for languages and encouraged him by providing many books to read. Thus, Tolkien’s imagination was stimulated by fairy tales, books and stories in particular the ones from Andrew Lang and George Macdonald with plots set in far-off kingdoms where misshapen and evil goblins lurked beneath mountains. He was also attracted to the Arthurian legends. But his favourite book was the Red
Fairy Book of Andrew Lang: the tale of Sigurd, the warrior who slew the dragon Fafnir
in the remote and nameless North (J. Pearce; Tolkien: Man and Myth, p.15). The harsh and violent world of Scandinavian storytelling would always be more appealing to him than the sunnier Mediterranean mythologies.
Mabel’s own life also proved to be as harsh as her son’s beloved distant northern regions. She did not get much help from her family to raise her boys. In the 1900s, along with her sister and children, she decided to convert to Roman Catholicism. Mabel’s conversion was a hard blow to the Unitarians Suffield and to the Baptist Tolkien families who were outraged by her Catholicism. Both families became extremely hostile to Mabel, ostracizing both her and her boys. Mabel’s only aid came from one Tolkien uncle who provided some financial help. Some of Tolkien’s biographers argue that Mabel's conversion may have been intended as some kind of selfish act or declaration to prove that her Christianity and citizenship should not be confused. But I think that Mabel’s conversation was not a calculated act for her own benefit. Above all, she sought to give her sons a Catholic upbringing at all costs. And unmoved, she relocated her family next door to the Birmingham Oratory, a large Catholic house of retreat, located in a suburb called Edgbaston. The parish priest was the Spanish half-Welsh Father Francis Morgan, who would play a key role in Tolkien’s life. The Birmingham Oratory, or Oratory of St. Philip Neri, was a congregation of secular priests living in a community but without the vows of poverty or obedience to any monastic superior order. The Oratorians were introduced in England in 1848 by John Henry Newman and followed a very traditional Christianity. I think that Tolkien's faith was shaped by the Oratorians' attempt to find a middle way between a denying asceticism of the medieval monastic world and a self-indulgent worldliness of an extremely modern Protestantism.
Unable to stay in the retreat for a long period of time, the Tolkien family moved to King's Heath, a grimly Birmingham urban area near the train station. David Doughan in his essay J.R.R. Tolkien: Bibliography Sketch, says that Tolkien’s “developing linguistic imagination was engaged by the sight of coal trucks going to and from South Wales bearing destinations like" Nantyglo"," Penrhiwceiber" and "Senghenydd"” (p.2). The ultimate consequences of this urban life, which he despised and hated, were, according to Joseph Pearce in his book Tolkien: Man and Myth, the “basis of the creative tension which would animate the contrasting visions of life and landscape in Middle-Earth” (p.18). In 1902, the Tolkiens moved once again from King’s Heath to a run-down house in Edgbaston, close to Birmingham Oratory. Both Ronald and Hillary were enrolled in St. Phillip’s School. But soon Mabel realised that St. Philip’s could no longer provide the education that Ronald needed, so she enrolled him at Kings Edward’s School where Tolkien’s linguistic aptitude were able to flourish. Greek and Latin were the backbone of the King Edward's academic curriculum but thanks to his mother’s former education, he could read and speak both languages
fluently by the time he finished public school. His biographers recount that once during a school debate he spoke entirely in Greek, and at the end of his final year at King Edward's, he and his classmates performed a Greek play in the original tongue. Later in life, Tolkien would also become fluent in Gothic and Anglo-Saxon.
In 1904 Tolkien’s family life worsened when Mabel was diagnosed with diabetes. Fate was unmerciful and she died later that year leaving her two sons completely penniless. Ronald was only twelve and Hillary ten. Mabel’s premature death made Tolkien a pessimist and a doom-believer. "Doom" is indeed a word that resounds like a fearful drumbeat throughout The Lord of the Rings. It evokes a chilling sense of both fate and judgment. “The death of Tolkien’s mother filled him with a deep sense of impending loss," says Carpenter. "It taught him that nothing is ever safe, that nothing will last, that no battle will be won forever" (J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, p.50-51). Tolkien firmly believed that the Crucifix was the centre of Catholic worship, both as the sign of God's own sacrifice of his Son as well as the doom that hangs over all living creature. The “Doom of Men” or the “Gift of Men,” as he called it so often in The Lord of
the Rings, both meaning death (doom) and eternal life (gift), were God’s gift to men
through His Son’s ultimate sacrifice. Mabel’s death also meant that Tolkien and his brother were now orphans. Therefore, the boys were placed under the guardianship of the Oratory and made wards of Father Francis - a central figure in the Tolkien household even before Mabel’s death. At first, Father Francis made arrangements for the boys to live with their aunt Beatrice, Mabel’s sister, moving them later to Mrs. Faulkner house. However, both women felt little affection for the orphaned brothers and so they made the Oratory their real home and Father Francis a “surrogate father” (p.26).
Father Francis attended to all practical details of the boys' housing, schooling and finances. He also took them on holidays to the seaside. Ronald and Hilary served as his altar boys for the early morning mass and became closely involved with the community of priests in the church. Though Tolkien remained grateful to Father Francis, the pain of the loss of his mother was never removed. By the time the boys moved to Mrs. Faulkner’s house, in 1908, Tolkien was already showing incredible linguistic gifts. He mastered Latin and Greek and was already becoming very skilful in a number of other languages, such as Gothic and Finnish, and began creating his own languages for fun.
It was at Mrs. Faulkner's boarding house that he met Edith Bratt and what began as a simple romance grew into something more serious. Father Francis did not
approve of the relationship and ordered Tolkien to move out from the boarding house and to break off the whole love affair. When Ronald and Edith began to pass love notes and start meeting clandestinely, Father Francis strictly forbade them to see each other for another three years. Tolkien had to wait until he was twenty-one to be able to see (or to correspond with) Edith again. Though Tolkien loved and honoured Father Francis as his faithful guardian and surrogate father, the ban stayed in his heart. Later, it will be reflected in the Lord of the Rings when Elrond forbids Aragon to see Arwen. Aragon, himself, has to endure long harsh lonely years until he is worthy of Arwen’s hand. In 1911, before going to Oxford with an Exhibition Scholarship at Exeter College, Tolkien made a summer walking tour in Switzerland. It was an unforgettable experience. The formidable steeps and gorges of the Alps provided a wonderful outward and physical link to his own inward and spiritual landscape, such as led to the creation of the Misty Mountains. It was also in Switzerland that he found a postcard from a German artist named Madelener with a drawing of a mountain spirit, which was the origin of one of his most important characters, the wizard Gandalf. Tolkien would keep this postcard all his life. After his trip to Switzerland, Tolkien went to Exeter College, Oxford, where he immersed himself in the Classics, Old English, the Germanic languages (especially Gothic), Welsh and Finnish, until 1913. He prospered at Oxford. There he learned the joys of good talk, good beer, male friendship, and a freshly filled “weed” pipe. Like many of his Oxford’s fellows, he adopted their curious slang and indulged what would become a lifelong love of crude practical jokes. He became quickly bored with Greek and Latin. Instead, he preferred his independent studies in the Germanic languages. He also acquired an almost mystical regard for words. He considered articulate sounds as our greatest gift, the principal thing that animals lack: speech. In Tolkien's view, no word is ever arbitrary or simply accidental. As he would show later in The Fellowship of the Ring, a meaningless nursery rhyme like "Hey, diddle, diddle" may have originally served as a drinking song.
But it was not only the power of words that kept Tolkien at Oxford. He was also sustained by three friendships he made at King Edward's School and continued into their Cambridge and Oxford student years. Tolkien and his friends discovered the wonder of shared books, ideas and dreams by meeting daily at a local Birmingham tea club called The Barrows. They called themselves the Tea Club Barrovian Society, which they shortened to TCBS. These four friends were united not only by their knowledge of Greek and Latin literature, but also by their common conviction that they were meant to kindle a new spiritual light for England. Together, they felt "four times their intellectual size," as one of them confessed. Perhaps, even more than his Oxford
professors, I believe that these three friends helped to shape Tolkien's sense of himself and awareness of his unique talent and vocation, as much as the three little hobbits of the Shire have helped Frodo in his personal journey. The TCBS can be the origin of the three of the nine walkers in The Fellowship the Ring that together, with their unconditional love and support, will help Frodo Baggins to carry out his impossible mission. Nevertheless, Tolkien obtained a second class degree in Honour Moderations and as a result, he changed his studies to Classics English Language and Literature. After his graduation in 1915, Tolkien enlisted as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers and was sent on active duty to the Western Front to be involved in the Battle of Somme in France. By then, he was already working on his invented languages, especially the one he called Qenya, which was heavily influenced by Finnish.
Tolkien reignited his old love for Edith Bratt before going to war and took up his old relationship where it had been left off. Father Francis’s ban was finally lifted and they were married shortly before Tolkien was shipped out to war and Edith’s conversion to Catholicism. Tolkien began to shape a new story on his honeymoon. It had to do with silmarils, the three great jewels of the elves that were stolen from the blessed realm of Valinor by the evil creature Morgoth, and with the subsequent wars in which the elves try to regain them. It would require an entire mythological system to explain it all; hence his lifelong project called The Silmarillion. In October of 1916, Tolkien succumbed to "trench fever" and was sent back to England, spending almost a month in the Birmingham hospital. During that time he lost two of his TCBS friends, one killed in action and the other by gangrene. It was a hard blow for Tolkien to learn that his friends had been killed in the "animal horror" (as he called it) of World War I. Like many others of his time, such as Karl Barth or Virginia Woolf, Tolkien sensed that a radical re-shaping of human life had occurred in this war - prematurely named “Great War.” Humanity was taking a decisive step towards what he felt it was the “Shadow”. Tolkien was permanently affected by his war experience. As mentioned by Carpenter, if his mother's death had taught Tolkien that something is terribly awry with the world, this war showed him the wretchedness of modern life, with its all-powerful means to bring about utterly destructive ends. The central subject of The Two Towers, for instance has wars and the weapons of total cruelty and destruction. Yet, Tolkien found a strange hope amidst the horrors of the war - the hope that there was still some goodness in this world that was worth fighting for. He saw it reflected in the eyes of the humble soldiers that played their part in the war without much fuss. Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee can be considered “hobbitic” versions of these ordinary soldiers who struggled onward without hope of glory or victory, as they play their part in a war they didn’t want but
become involved in. Tolkien also felt a special need to fulfil the dreams and hopes of his two dead TCBS friends. Therefore, as an act of honouring their memory, as well as a reaction against his war experiences, he began to shape his Silmarillion stories. Using only his imagination and a cheap notebook, Tolkien developed The Book of Lost
Tales in which most of the major stories of The Silmarillion appear in their first form:
tales of Elves and “Gnomes" with their languages in Qenya and Goldogrin. He also wrote here the first versions of the wars against Morgoth, the siege and fall of Gondolin and Nargothrond, and the tales of Túrin, Beren and Lúthien (D. Doughan, p.4).
In the meantime, while her husband was totally immersed in the fog of war, Edith worked as a secretary. She also proved to be an excellent nurse capable of bringing her war-sick husband back to health. Tolkien would never forget their early happiness, especially their long walks in the nearby woods as he recovered from trench fever. "Her hair was raven," he wrote "her skin clear, her eyes bright, and she could sing... and dance" (H. Carpenter & C. Tolkien; The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien, p.135).
Figure 1: Edith Bratt
Edith Bratt sacrificed a lot to be Tolkien's wife. She became a Catholic before their marriage, at his insistence, but he never really shared or explained his deep reverence for the Church of Rome. So, she always resented having to confess before attending mass, regarding it more as superficial duties than spiritual needs. When Tolkien became an Oxford professor, she felt terribly inadequate among other professors’ wives with higher educational qualifications and greater cultural achievements than her own. She became known among the academic Oxford circle as the "wife who did not call" and was often excluded from the social gatherings hosted by other Oxford wives. Edith also had a growing resentment of Tolkien's constant need for his intellectual male friends because she saw how he came truly alive among them. Though Edith bore him four children and raised them in a happy family environment, she virtually came to live in a separate physical space from Tolkien’s since they occupied different bedrooms and kept their own hours. Nevertheless, I believe that Tolkien was not completely unaware of Edith’s sacrifices. As a matter of fact, I think that his insistence on living in a discrete seaside resort near Bournemouth after his retirement from Oxford was a way of paying his huge debt for Edith’s sacrifices. He knew she would be happy there, even though it meant almost total isolation from his intellectual friends. Edith remained for him the orphan girl who had rescued the orphan boy from an immense loneliness and sadness. Tolkien's emotional remembrance of her is reflected in his words: "Forever
(especially when alone)…we still met in woodland glade and went hand in hand many times to escape the shadow of imminent death before our last parting" (H. Carpenter & C. Tolkien, p.136).
After the end of World War I, Tolkien began to ascend the academic ladder; first as a researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary (1918-20), than as a Reader in the English Language at Leeds University (1920-25), later as a Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (1925-1945), and finally, as Professor of English Language and Literature at Merton College in Oxford (1945). He held this last post until his retirement in 1959. According to his former students, Tolkien was a good, but not a great teacher. He was known for his indistinct speech that made his lectures hard to understand. But, on the other hand, he was very passionate about Anglo-Saxon and gifted in bringing his subjects alive. His recitations of Beowulf were so famous that W. H. Auden described them as being spoken in the voice of Gandalf. Tolkien regarded the great literary texts as ‘events’ to be primarily experienced through reading them aloud. Meanwhile, some other events occurred in his personal life. John, his first son, was born in 1917, Michael in 1920, Christopher in 1924 and finally Priscilla, his only daughter, in 1925. As stated by Pearce, “the importance of these four events in Tolkien’s life cannot be overstated. Certainly, their importance should never understate or, worse, ignored (Pearce, p. 40). Tolkien’s children were also a source of inspiration for his role as storyteller. He wrote them beautifully illustrated Christmas letters that were left in the chimney or brought by the postman. One of these stories grew into a book, The Hobbit.
After Edith's death in 1971, he was often a lonely, though still active man. He was awarded an honorary doctorate at Oxford in 1972 for his work in philology, not in fantasy literature. He continued in a desultory fashion to revise The Silmarillion until his son Christopher (who became an expert in his father's fiction) completed it for publication. He remained a faithful Catholic until his death on September 2 1973, at the age of 81, and was buried next to his wife in a plain grave located in the Catholic section of an Oxford public cemetery called Wolvercote. His son, Christopher Tolkien, would spend the next twenty-five years living away from the public eye in France editing and publishing his father's other works, including The Silmarillion and The Book
of Lost Tales until his own death in the late 1990s. Though Tolkien spent a lifetime
working out an elaborate mythology to represent this carefully planned spirituality, I do not think that he ever regarded himself as a spiritual figure or as a linguistic genius. He firmly believed in his own abilities as a scholar and writer, but he did not consider his talents particularly important for the well-being of society as a whole. Quite the
contrary, he regarded himself as just another ordinary man, a fallible member of human kind. In fact, his family and social life was as straightforward as his academic life, a simple life as described by Shippey in his foreword of the book J.R.R Tolkien: the
Author of the Century. Shippey also says that Tolkien “refused to distinguish the two”
of his worlds. I don’t quite agree with this. Tolkien declared on several occasions that ‘I am in fact a hobbit’. Obviously, he was placing his own love for beer, pipe smoking and storytelling on a par with one of his characters, thus offering us a detailed identification between himself and his work. But he had also openly declared several times his dislike and distrust for allegory. Yet, he secretly hoped that his mythology might be found to be “true” as he expressed it in the Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews in 1939: “every writer making a secondary world wishes in some measure to be a real maker or hopes that he is drawing on reality” (Shippey, p. 255). Even so, it is this ‘ruling passion’ mentioned by Shippey (his love for philology) that remarkably distinguishes Tolkien from other writers of his kind, by his creating a mythology and complex languages in a way that no others did. It is probably true, that during his life he might have refused to distinguish his inner world from his outer world, but with The
Lord of the Rings he has left us an open door to the enchanting world of his stories,
and the key is love, kindness, hope and loyalty. Those are the values that help Tolkien’s characters to follow their individual paths, to fight their inner battles, and manage to triumph over the “Shadow”, together as a “Fellowship”.
2. The Book:
Creating an English
Myth - Philology and Historical Sources
Figure 2: J.R.R. Tolkien in 1972
The Words
For Tolkien, words were like living beings because, in their unique and unduplicated ways, they can reveal the nature of things. He believed that words give life to the created order. For example, a tree is not truly a ‘tree’ until someone names it. Thus, according to Tolkien, things can call out their names from us, by signalling to us
to give them their true existence with words. He also thought that words arise from the very nature of things and are, therefore, intrinsic rather than extrinsic to the universe. Here, Tolkien’s philological point of view clashes directly with the common paradigms of post-modernism which state that words are just signs that reveal nothing but only their differences from other signs. But for Tolkien language is our crucial way into the ‘real’ world and not just into an imaginary one. In fact, he came to regard Gandalf, and other central characters of The Rings, not as fictional but historical people.
As a religious man, Tolkien believed that our words are embedded in the Word (God) who has become flesh in the human body of Jesus Christ. Following this line, I can say that mythologies are probably the most exemplary forms for this ontological kind of speech. They unveil (through characters, events and images) the fundamental order of things, an order which is not meant for us to invent but for us to find out. Tolkien explained in his numerous interviews and letters, that he had not ‘invented’ his magnificent mythology but ‘discovered’ it instead. Once, when asked the meaning of a certain passage, he replied: "I don't know; I'll try to find out. I always had the sense, of recording what was already 'there'” he said, “The tales arose in my mind, as 'given' things, and as they came, separately, so too the links grew," he confessed (Shippey, p. 92). Within this context, Tolkien is implying that we all have the ‘knowledge’ we just simply need to discover it, and then record it by using the ‘words’ as a vehicle of expression.
Tolkien's high regard for ancient languages and myths also gave him a high regard for ancient poetry. Like the other Inklings, he remained quite indifferent to the free-verse style of modern poetry. He preferred the Anglo-Saxon and Middle English poems like Beowulf, The Pearl, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight. Tolkien was also drawn to the 19th century Catholic poet Francis Thompson. He especially admired the work of William Morris, which also sought to re-tell the ancient English and Northern sagas. Tolkien's own poems are much like poetic inversions, which according to some of his critics resound in drumbeat rhythms and regular rhymes and sound rather like jingling to us. But being always first the philologist and then the writer, it was the invented languages and not the fictional history which was the primary foundation for his works, as he once commented “The 'stories' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows" (Shippey, p.92). Tolkien’s languages are so inextricably bound up with his literary work that creates a beautiful and mythical ‘paradise lost.’ A longing for a ‘once upon a time lost society’ is reflected “in much of what he wrote and read,” states Shippey; “one can
see him trying to return to the time before the confusion set in, when the traditions of the Shire and the Mark were uncorrupted” (Shippey, p.398).
Tolkien’s Christianity
Tolkien was a man of faith, and his beliefs and philosophical notions were reflected in his works. Still there are no direct or explicit references to Christianity or Catholicism in The Lord of the Rings, or in The Hobbit, or The Silmarillion. Shippey, however, points out in his book The Road to Middle-Earth that “The Silmarillion was based on the Christianity story of fall and Redemption” (p.273). “Is it a rival to the Christian story?” asks Shippey, but then he goes on to explain that if that thought ever occurred to Tolkien it was “only to be repudiated” (p.268). I believe that Tolkien’s Catholic roots were too deep to ever write a “rival” story to The Genesis. Both Pearce and Shippey agree that The Silmarillion is “the most significant, the most beautiful of all Tolkien work” (Pearce, p.84). As for Shippey, he concludes by saying “through the story there runs a delight in mutability, as languages change and treasures pass from hand to hand; the deepest fable of beauty forged, stolen, and lost forever in recovery. Though springing from The Genesis, this is (The Silmarillion) at once more ambiguous, more heroic, and more humane” (p.276). But ...what about The Lord of the Rings? It also seems to be a book that “sprung” from the Genesis, or rather, from Tolkien’s own Christianity? Yet, it bears restating, the book has no direct or explicit references to Christianity or Catholicism. In fact, the word God is not even used once throughout the entire story.
Yet, "The Lord of the Rings," Tolkien wrote to a friend in 1953 just before the first book was published, is "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision" (H. Carpenter & C. Tolkien, p. 172). The almost total absence of Christian references in the book can be explained. It was Tolkien’s desire to stay theologically orthodox, as he once said to Father Robert Murray, that led him to avoid being too specific despite the biblical parallels in the creation of the story. "That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion,' to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and into the symbolism," (Carpenter & C. Tolkien, p. 172) explained Tolkien. Though clearly lacking in specific religious reference or parable, the final result is still an outstandingly ambitious myth that leads us to the beginning of time. Christian believers who share Tolkien's faith can easily
track its roots into Catholic metaphors and tradition. The religious message, though subtle, is still there. It is clear that the ‘evil’ in Middle-Earth was ‘good’ twisted and perverted. It is also mentioned numerous times, that Orcs (former Elves), like the Ring Wraithers (ex-human kings), clearly felt under the evil spell of Sauron. The humble and good-hearted (like Bilbo and Frodo) are tempted, yet they still can triumph through sacrificial love. Apocalyptical doom approaches but hope still prevail in human hearts - the “hope of fouls”, as Gandalf called it, but nevertheless, still hope.
But it was not only Tolkien’s religious devotion that influenced his writing. It was also fed by the Inklings and their main concern to carry on the Christian gospel’s validity and vigour amidst a secular age. The biblical stories, like all other myths, are beautiful deceits; mere lovely lies to fulfil wishes and men’s hearts. Tolkien explained once to C. S. Lewis that myths were not just the dream-wishes but lonely men project onto an empty universe to cheer themselves up. He believed that great mythic repetitions of dying and rising gods and of heroes battling the forces of evil could be interpreted as signs of something of transcendent significance. We create myths because we have been created. Therefore, we rebuild the fundamental order of the universe, discerning the basic pattern of all things: life-through-death. However sometimes misguided pagan myths can be pointing toward the truth.
Tolkien gave to this argument a careful explanation in his Andrew Lang Lecture of, ‘On Faerie Stories’ in 1937. He argued that even the most ‘unrealistic’ story of fairy tales and their happy endings points to this truth. He explained that an ‘unhappy’ ending does not mean that they end in universal failure and ultimate defeat but in ‘eucatastrophe’, a good calamity, instead. The disaster acknowledges the reality of death and destruction, but it also reveals the finality of the word Joy - "Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief" (Pearce, p. 86). Tolkien called these fairy-tale endings "a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world." The Gospel is the ultimate fairy-story because it contains "the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe," which is the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. "There is no other tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits to reject it leads either to sadness or wrath" (Pearce, p. 88-89).
According to Pearce "That is certainly what he set out to do with The Lord of the
Rings. But if you tear the myth away from Tolkien's worldview, then the story isn't going
(p.85). Thus, myth as well as medievalism is at the heart of his epic tale. This is especially true since Tolkien's work includes images and ideas drawn from legions of myths, legends and traditions. His goal was to create a myth that combined elements of others "with the whole story illumined from within by a Trinitarian, Christian light" (Pearce, p.85). Pearce also said "The great strength of Tolkien's work may, in the end, be its weakness. He has created truth in a form that is truly sublime -- myth. Yet that is also a form of art that can easily be twisted. He was writing a myth, but he wanted it to be a True Myth, a myth rooted in Truth with a capital T, take away that truth and you change the myth" (p.87). The truth is held to the end that literature interprets itself, rather as God reveals himself, in sheer mystery and power.
Sources of Inspiration
Tolkien’s inspiration for his heroic tale of Frodo the Ring-bearer and his Fellowship came from many sources. I don’t think that a complete and definitive list of these has yet been compiled or published. However, through his biographers, his surviving close friends and his son Christopher, we know that he was mainly inspired by: Norse and Germanic legends, Celtic mythology and language, Icelandic sagas, fairy tales, folk and oral tales, including the Finnish epic known as the Kalevala and its language, the poem Beowulf, Chaucer, obscure medieval romances known as the Matter of England, the plays of Shakespeare, and the medieval history of Western Europe. Not to mention his early works such as The Silmarillion, his Christianity, the Bible, his war experiences and personal reminiscences. From each of these sources of inspiration he adapted his tale of The Lord of the Rings, as he often pointed it out, in many different ways.
Tolkien’s most recognised source is the tenth-century adaptation of an eighth century oral composition of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. The poem shows a strange mix of Christian and pagan elements, which suggests (agreed with by most editors and critics) that the existing oral story was probably adapted to fit a new cultural environment after the conversion of Britain to Christianity. Other sources, less erudite, are the rural “middle” England landscape and Tolkien’s own reminiscences of a society before the industrialisation era. Naturally, for anyone who intends to write a mythology for England, linking that mythology with familiar landscapes is quite understandable. In fact, Tolkien himself acknowledged that his love for the English countryside had greatly influenced his creation of The Shire. But not all geographic features of Middle-earth can be easily associated with the contemporary English landscape. Some writers connected the Middle-Earth landscape to “Tolkien’s understanding of England’s
Anglo-Saxon past,” as stated by Lynn Forest-Hill in her article The Fantastic Seriousness of
J.R.R.Tolkien, published by TEMA in April 2004.
Even so, with all its Anglo-Saxon historical reminiscences and the similarities of the English countryside landscapes to The Shire, Middle-Earth did not originate in The
Lord of the Rings. It was born in a much earlier Tolkien work, The Silmarillion, which is
probably, the main source for his tale of Frodo and the Ring. Using Pearce words “The
Silmarillion delved deep into the past of the Middle-Earth” and it is from the pages of its
“vast landscape of myth” (p.83) and oral legends that the Middle-Earth was created, and with it, the entire history that lays behind The Lord of the Rings. Basically, still using Pearce words, "Tolkien could not create from nothing. Only God can do that. But he was able to sub-create an entire world using his imagination, his beliefs and his experiences in the world around him" (85).
3. The Book – The Story of its Publication
The story behind the publication of The Rings is like a long battle that lasted sixteen years, leaving us wondering if The Rings would ever finally make to the bookstores. Initially, The Lord of the Rings was supposed to be just a sequel to Tolkien’s earlier book, The Hobbit, a sequel that he did not really want to write and yet turned out to be one of his bestsellers. So, before The Lord of the Rings there was The
Hobbit, and the “hobbit” was born out of a blank page left by one of his students where
he casually wrote “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” And because names always triggered stories in Tolkien’s mind he thought “I’d better find out what hobbits were like” (Carpenter, p.239) and it was the beginning of a story that was merely started for his personal amusement. Apparently Tolkien never intended to publish The
Hobbit, and it seems, according to Carpenter, that the “typescript of the nearly finished
story… was occasionally show to favoured friends, together with its accompanying maps (and perhaps already a few illustrations). But it did not often leave Tolkien’s study, where it sat, incomplete and now likely to remain so” (p.239). But among his “favoured friends” was an ex-student called Elaine Griffiths who had some connections with the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin. It was through Elaine that The
Hobbit made its way to George Allen & Unwin’s printers.
Stanley Unwin decided to give the typescript of The Hobbit to his ten-year-old son Rayner to read and write a report in exchange for ten shillings. Rayner wrote: “This book, with the help of maps, does not need any illustration it is good and should appeal
to all children between the ages of 5 and 9” (Carpenter, p.241). He earned his ten shilling and The Hobbit its first publication on September 21st 1937. By Christmas the book was sold out and the second reprint, along with an American edition, was published with Tolkien’s own illustrations. Months later, when the American edition was awarded the “New York Herald Tribune” prize and received the acclamation of most literary critics, Unwin realised that there would be a much larger public than he initially expected demanding hobbits. So he wrote to Tolkien asking for more hobbits. But Tolkien did not have more “hobbits”. He had several other children’s stories and an unfinished novel called The Lost Road. He had his beloved mythological work The
Silmarillion and wanted it published; so he sent it to Unwin. But in mid-December of
1937, Unwin wrote to Tolkien saying that though The Silmarillion was a wonderful material “what we badly need is another book with which to follow up our success with The Hobbit(…) I still hope that you will be inspired to write another book about the Hobbit” (Carpenter, p.245). To Unwin’s great surprise, three days later he received a letter from Tolkien saying “I have written the first chapter of a new story about Hobbits – A long expected party” (p.247).
The Ring should be the connection between The Hobbit (Bilbo) and the “new hobbit” (Frodo). Frodo Baggins was born and with him the “Fellowship of the Ring” - the first volume of the Rings trilogy. But the idea was one thing and its realization another. It was not until 1954, sixteen years later, that the first two volumes of the
Rings were published. They still had a long way to go. Initially, Allen & Unwin hoped to
be able to publish the new book two years after The Hobbit. But soon their hope faded away when by December 1942 Stanley Unwin received a letter from Tolkien reporting that though the “new hobbit” was almost completed he will need at least another year to finish it. He had only reached Chapter XXXI and he needed to add at least six more chapters to tie up its conclusion. In the meantime, the Second World War had erupted and as C. S. Lewis observed, "real events began, horribly, to conform to the pattern [Tolkien] had invented" (Carpenter & C.Tolkien, p.190). I believe that there were other less weighty reasons for the delay. Tolkien’s academic work burdens and his own perfectionism and procrastination were in reality the main obstacles - not to mention his linguistic tendency to chase after name-making and introducing elvish languages (and other invented languages) into The Rings. He was such a perfectionist that he had to be sure that every single detail (included all geographical and chronological details) was consistent and fitted properly into a coherent pattern. He drew, with the help of his son Christopher, elaborate maps of the Middle-Earth. But the maps were not enough. He also added endless charts of events, dates, calendars, and even maps
showing the direction of the wind, the phases of the moon and calculations of time and distance. Carpenter states that this perfectionism “was partly his habitual insistence on perfection, partly sheer revelling in the fun of ‘sub-creation,’ but most of all a concern to provide a totally convincing picture.” Tolkien said: “I want people simply to get inside this story and take it (in a sense) as actual history” (p.259-260).
At the end of Book III, by the summer of 1943, Tolkien became "dead stuck" and did not touch the manuscript for six months. He finally started working again on
The Lord of the Rings in 1944, at Lewis's instigation. He used to read parts of it out
loud to the Inklings, his small intellectual group of friends. The Inklings use to meet weekly in a local pub to exchange ideas and read each other’s literary works. But when in 1945 he was afflicted by “writer’s block” again, The Rings simply remained unfinished on his desk. The war in Europe had come to an end, but had also brought an end to his friend Charles Williams. The death of his friend Williams was a bitter loss and a sign to Tolkien that “peace would not bring an end to all troubles” (Carpenter & C. Tolkien, p.266). During the Second Great War he wrote to his son Christopher “We are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring.” But after William’s death he bitterly wrote, “The War is not over (and the one that is, or part of it, has largely been lost). But it is of course wrong to fall into such mood, for Wars are always lost, and the War always goes on; and [it] is no good growing faint” (p. 267). The end of the war also brought another reprint of The Hobbit but The Lord of the Rings was far from being finished, though he wrote parts of its unfinished chapters in his letters to Christopher besides its reading to the Inklings.
In the summer of 1946 Tolkien considered himself defeated. He confessed to Allen & Unwin than despite his great effort to finish The Lord of the Rings he had failed. By now, Rayner Unwin (Stanley Unwin’s son) was a graduate student at Oxford and met Tolkien. At his insistence Tolkien showed him an almost finished script of The
Rings. Once again, Rayner reported to his father that the despite the fact he
considered it a “weird book” it was, nevertheless, “a brilliant and gripping story” (Carpenter, p.270). Stanley pressed Tolkien to finish his book, passing along his son comments about the story. Tolkien was pleased with Rayner’s remarks but could not bring himself to finish the story saying, “the thing is to finish the thing as devised and then let it be judged” (p.270). By 1947 he managed to revise, re-write, and correct some of earlier chapters but spending so much time with it that most of his friends started to wonder, if in fact, The Lord of the Rings will ever be finished. He completed the final revisions and appendices only in 1949, typing the successive drafts with only two fingers on the typewriter balanced on his attic bed, since there was no room on his
desk (p. 272). He lent a copy of the completed typed script, but still not completely finished, to Lewis who congratulated him because “all the long years you have spent on it are justified” (p.273).
Tolkien spent twelve of his best years writing The Lord of the Rings, finishing it as he was approaching his 60th birthday. When he finally handed it to Stanley Unwin he said: “It is written in my life-blood, such as that is, thick or thin; and I can do no other” (Carpenter, p.273). Little did he know that it would take another four years and a long quarrel over the actual printing before it would be able emerge to readers. The publisher insisted on publishing three volumes rather than one and refused to include
The Silmarillion. But Tolkien was determined to publish The Silmarillion and to find an
audience for it. So, when in 1950 Milton Waldman from Collins Publishing House showed interest in publishing both works, Tolkien decided to leave Allen & Unwin and join Waldman. In fact, it was Waldman’s interest in publishing The Silmarillion that hurried Tolkien to make the finishing touches to The Lord of the Rings and handing the manuscript to Waldman.
Waldman was delighted with the story, which he considered a “real work of creation,” but he did not hide the fact that he was worried about the length of the book. However, since Collins was also a printer and a stationary manufacture, the shortage of paper in a post-war was not a problem. I think what Collins really wanted was to profit from the already lucrative Hobbit and since Tolkien was quite unhappy with its latest re-print, which for economic reasons lacked the coloured illustrations, he believed that Collins would be a better option for his books. However, there still was a small problem to deal with - how to break his professional relationship with Allen & Unwin. Waldman wanted to be sure that Tolkien was under no moral or legal commitment or obligations to Allen & Unwin and as an answer Tolkien wrote, “I have had friendly personal relations with Stanley U. and especially with his second son Rayner. If all this constitutes a moral obligation, then I am under one. However, I shall certainly try to extricate myself, or at least The Silmarillion and all its kin, from the dilatory coils of A. and U. if I can – in a friendly fashion if possible” (Carpenter, p. 279). In fact, Tolkien did not think of Allen & Unwin as an enemy but just a very unreliable ally unlike Collins, who seemed to represent everything he hoped for. Most of all, they were willing to publish The Silmarillion. So, after a brief exchange of angry letters with Stanley Unwin, Tolkien was able to detach himself (and his works) from Allen & Unwin (after giving them an ultimatum) and be free to publish with Collins. Tolkien and Milton Waldman were quite certain that Collins will publish the books. But things did not
exactly turned out to be that way. In May 1950, Waldman asked Tolkien to “urgently” cut down The Lord of the Rings. Quite appalled, Tolkien answered that he had “cut often and hard already” but he will try it again. There was also the problem of The
Silmarillion, which, according to Waldman, the manuscript seemed to be longer than The Lord of the Rings. I think this was probably a misunderstanding since The Silmarillion was, in fact, nothing compared to the 500,000 words of The Rings. The
truth is that the negotiations became quite confusing. In the meantime, Waldman left for his annual trip to Italy became ill and his trip to London was delayed, and so it was the publication of Tolkien’s books. As a consequence by the end of 1950 - a year after the completion of The Lord of the Rings - the book was still not published. Tolkien received a letter from Stanley Unwin still hopping “to have the privilege of being connected with its publication” (Carpenter, p.283), but his response was a mere friendly letter with no reference to the books whatsoever.
Meanwhile, Tolkien’s time was taken by his academic and administrative duties and another year went by without achieving the publication. Finally, in 1951, Tolkien wrote a letter to Waldman outlining an estimate of about 10,000 words for his mythology, but by March 1952 he still had not signed any contract with Collins for publication. I think the real problem here was the price of the paper that soared due to the post-war economic climate. The length of Tolkien’s books would have been a very expensive project at the time, and the publishers were uncertain of its profitability due to his unique manner of writing. At last, tired of the delay, Tolkien wrote a letter to Collins saying that “his time had been wasted. Either they must publish The Lord of the
Rings immediately or he would send the manuscript back to Allen & Unwin” (Carpenter,
p.284). The result was predictable. Collins simply replied that it would be better for Tolkien to send the manuscript back to Allen & Unwin. And so he did, and through Rayner Unwin The Lord of the Rings went back to Allen & Unwin, once again.
In November 1952 Tolkien received a letter from Rayner Unwin saying that his firm had agreed to publish The Lord of the Rings under a profit-sharing agreement - that meant that Tolkien would receive nothing until the sales of the books had covered its costs (Carpenter, 276). Rayner also suggested that the book should be published in three volumes, although the book was one continuous story and not a trilogy (apparently a point always emphasized by Tolkien) but it will considerably reduce the cost of the paper. Needless to say, Tolkien was never very pleased with the division of the book and insisted on keeping The Lord of the Rings as its overall title. But after much discussion with Rayner he finally agreed on the volume titles as The Fellowship
of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The first volume of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was finally published in the summer of 1954,
four years after its completion. The other two volumes were then published, one by one, after brief intervals, in 1955. The reviews were mixed and contradictory. Obviously W. H. Auden and C. S. Lewis praised the books generously, but Edwin Muir and Edmund Wilson damned them as mere juvenile work. Wilson complained that the characters were not men but only boys who knew nothing of women and were, therefore, merely concealed as heroes.
Nevertheless, readers happily ignored the critics. The books were bought everywhere and hundreds of thousands people read the books, turning an elderly, unknown Oxford professor into a wealthy man and a world celebrity. Gifts and fan letters kept pouring in. American fans telephoned in the middle of the night, completely unaware of the time difference. Visitors began to arrive without appointment. Strangers and reporters began to snap photographs through the windows of Tolkien’s house. A Tolkien cult soon arose. In the 1960’s, it was rumoured among California hippies that Tolkien wrote The Rings while smoking marijuana. Graffiti were scribbled in places such as the New York underground declaring, "Frodo Lives" and "J. R. R. Tolkien is hobbit-forming." Demands for film versions and translations arrived from everywhere. In the 1970’s there was an attempted to transpose The Lord of the Rings into a moody live-action and cartoon version by Ralph Bakshi, which was a total commercial disaster, but did not diminished the enthusiasm of Tolkien’s fans. And where stood Tolkien in the middle of all this? He simply never lost his sense of irony about it all. "Being a cult figure in one's own lifetime," he wrote, "is not at all unpleasant. However, I do not find that it tends to puff one up; in my case at any rate it makes me feel extremely small and inadequate. But even the nose of a very modest idol cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense" (Carpenter & C. Tolkien, p.399).
Over time The Lord of the Rings continued to increase in popularity. The books have been translated into over 25 languages and it became one of the most read books of the 20th Century. Thousands of illustrations, calendars and posters had been published along with the books. The Lord of the Rings has been hailed everywhere. It raised religious issues and endless discussions about its “true” meaning. It was associated with political allegories, such as that the Ring could mean the atomic bomb, or Sauron could be the Third Reich or the evil East being associated with the Soviet Union. What was the secret of its success? What caused this popular social
phenomenon? As Peter Jackson later said during the making of his movies, the phenomenon of its contemporary popularity can be attributed to endless fundamental issues of human existence, unconsciously or consciously raised by Tolkien more than half a century ago.
CHAPTER II
1. Adaptation to Cinema
“Everyone who sees films based on novels feels able to comment, at levels ranging from the gossip to the erudite, on the nature and success of the adaptation involved […] And it ranges backwards and forwards from those who talk of novels as being ‘betrayed’ by boorish film-makers to those who regard the practice of comparing film and novel as a waste of time […] newspapers and journal reviews almost invariably offer comparison between a film and its literary precursor; from fan magazines to more or less scholarly books, one finds reflections on the incidence of adaptation; works serious and trivial, complex and simple, early and recent, address themselves to various aspects of this phenomenon almost as old as the institution of the cinema” (Brian McFarlane, Novel to Film – An Introduction
to the Theory of Adaptation, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996, p. 3)
Unlike previous film adaptations such as Awakenings, written by Dr. Oliver Sacks (1973) and adapted by Penny Marshall (1990), or The Island of Dr. Moreau, written by H.G. Wells in 1889 and adapted for the screen in 1996 by director John Frankenhiemer (which were poorly done and left audiences with a sense of being cheated), The Lord of
the Rings film adaptations were a tremendous success at the box-offices, despite some
fairly harsh criticism from both readers and film critics. The success of the adaptations is mostly because they are part of an adaptive process, which is a characteristic of Tolkien’s own creative writing technique. This technique is part of the founding principles and practices of medieval literature from which he drew his inspiration, and is a process in which the films now participate and make their own special contribution. The main one of these was not to worry overly about issues of originality and personal authority. The medieval artist was a ‘maker’ before he was an author; most narrative content was borrowed or lifted from some other source, very little was invented, and what was original often pretended not to be.
Through this medieval adaptation process of accretion of sources, the books successfully take us into the literature and culture of the European Middle Ages. It also reminds us of our perceptions of ideals such as honour, heroism, friendship, loyalty, love, and where in the past they come from. Tolkien’s writing is so convincing with accurate (and detailed) descriptive narratives that can even appeal to readers who know little about the Middle-Ages period. The films try to continue this process by capturing the medieval
